


Fallingforyou

by toziuers



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angel!Stanley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, everyone else mentioned vaguely, just a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22223776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toziuers/pseuds/toziuers
Summary: There's a pinboard hung lopsided on the wall, like the nails were placed unevenly before hanging. It's halfway full of pins from various cities and states, and there’s keychains hanging haphazardly off thumbtacks off to the side. It's chaotic, but in a way that's so distinctlyRichie, Stanley can't find it in him to hate it.
Relationships: Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	Fallingforyou

**Author's Note:**

> hello i am back! i offer you: angel stanley because he is ... my angel and also richie's thank you for listening. please enjoy because this took me 3 months to finish and it is 4:30am as i am posting this
> 
> title from the 1975 song by the same title bc thats all i listened to writing this

It’s dark when Stanley wakes up. He blinks to adjust, eyes unfocused and hazy; the room around him is cast in the soft moonlight that filters through the blinds, and Stanley thinks it has to be well past midnight now. 

Eventually his eyes land on a book thrown haphazardly on the coffee table. It’s got coffee stains on it (in perfect, stained rings, like its been used as a coaster more than once), colorful post-its sticking out on all sides- scrawled messily on the cover is simply a name: Richie Tozier.

_Richie Tozier_. Stanley’s in _his_ apartment, on _his_ couch, eyes roaming lazily around the small living room. He knows the scenery better than he knows most anything else, he could probably draw it from memory by now. His eyes track up to the small picture frames on the shelf above the old TV, protecting pictures of Richie with the people he loves (Eddie Kaspbrak, most prominently, but Bill Denbrough, too, and Beverly Marsh. There's one of Stanley, too, but _just_ Stanley- he refuses to take a picture _with_ Richie, because- _just because._ He’s laughing in it, head thrown back and eyes scrunched up, and Stanley wonders how Richie managed to capture it). There's a pinboard hung lopsided on the wall, like the nails were placed unevenly before hanging. It's halfway full of pins from various cities and states, and there’s keychains hanging haphazardly off thumbtacks off to the side. It's chaotic, but in a way that's so distinctly _Richie_ , Stanley can't find it in him to hate it. 

His eyes land back on the coffee table, skip over the book and the various crumpled receipts, landing on Stanley’s own keys he placed there earlier. His house key, his car key, and the only other thing on the key ring: a small, silver pair of angel wings attached to a keychain Richie got him during the first month they were friends. He smiles to himself over the memory of how flustered he was when Richie gave it to him, but the good feelings don’t last long- not when a bitter feeling takes over in its place, when he can feel his heart physically constrict at the irony of the gesture. 

And as Stanley fiddles with the necklace around his neck, fingertip dipping through the ring that’s looped through the chain, he lets the bitter feelings take over, if only for a moment. A moment, in which he thinks about why he’s really here ( _and he doesn't just mean in Richie’s apartment_ ), about why the angel wings are so absolutely ironic it almost makes him want to cry. 

Because- _because_ the truth of the matter is, he _is_ an angel. Wings, halo, purity and all. The only reason there’s a difference between _that_ description and how Stanley is _right now_ is because he’s in the human realm. _Meaning_ , his wings have gone (and wasn't _that_ a weird few weeks, realizing he could fit into smaller spaces than usual) and his halo has become discreet enough to have the ring around a necklace he wears all the time (because, well, he _couldn't_ take it off even if he tried. It's attached to him in the same way his body parts are, just with less tissue and muscle and more _cosmic force_ ). 

It hurts, vaguely, the bitterness he feels right now. It’s a bitterness he shouldn't be allowing himself to feel- a bitterness that means he’s too invested, too attached his assignment. And- _and_ Stanley knows what that could mean for _him_ ; he knows the stories, the ones of angels who have gotten too attached, struck down and stripped of their status, forced to live in the human realm for the rest of their (now) mortal lives. He _knows_ the stories, knows how it has happened even to the oldest of angels, ones who have lived for eons and eons before Stanley has. 

He’s here to watch over Richie, to improve his quality of living, to help him through things from his past and things that will happen in the future. He’s here for business. There's no reason to feel compassion- not for a human that has the capacity to fight in petty wars and who cradles their pride and ego so close to their chest. For the human who will just as readily fight for love like it is something tangible in the air, as they will pretend that same person does not exist a week later because of something _silly._ There's no use in being compassionate for humans, for developing unneeded emotions- it's just the rule of angels. 

_And yet,_ he can feel something stirring below the surface, something he feels he’s powerless to stop. He’s thought about it before- getting up and leaving, abandoning his assignment and taking the punishment. About leaving Richie to another angel, one who’d no doubt have to take over in his place (Stanley might- _might_ trust Mike with the job), one who wouldn't get attached and break the _one rule there is._

But- _but_ , Stanley can't. He can’t bear to leave, not when Richie needs him so much (he can see it, sense it, even if Richie won't talk to him about anything he’s struggling with). So, he pushes down anything he’s feeling, no matter how bad it hurts, no matter how much he _just wants to_ -

The angels older than him, the ones leagues more wise, say the humans need fixing. Say they need all the help they can get. Stanley thinks that maybe, just _maybe_ , they’re wrong. Maybe it's not the humans who need fixing ( _maybe it's him, maybe it's been him all along, maybe-_ ). 

There's a noise, then, from the recliner adjacent to the couch where Richie’s been sleeping for the past however long they've been together (they were with Eddie and Bill earlier, trying to study for different classes, and Stanley eventually ended up back at Richie’s like always). The noise that comes from Richie is annoyed, like he’s just waking up and he’s uncomfortable. 

“Stanny,” Richie whispers softly, saying his name like his mouth can't quite form around the ‘L’ in his name. “You awake?” he asks, and Stanley can see his outline shift under the blanket he’d thrown over him earlier, when Richie insisted he was just going to ‘ _rest his eyes’_ and not fall asleep (he’d fallen asleep in five minutes flat, and Stanley had smiled to himself over it). 

Stanley hums, a soft sound in the relative quiet of the apartment, save for the sound of the refrigerator running and the clicks of the heat turning on. He can see Richie’s head turn towards him in the dark, as if he’d be able to see Stanley clearly. 

“Wanna go on a walk?” Richie asks, like it's not the middle of the night. 

And really, Stanley has a headache at the mere thought of going out at this hour. He should really go home, sleep in his own bed, _not_ take up Richie on his offer in the early hours of the morning. He knows Mike was right when he said not to get involved with humans, that they were nothing but _trouble trouble trouble._ But then- but _then_ Richie looks up sleepily from where his head had dropped to watch his hands fiddle with the blanket, and Stanley feels his heart constrict painfully. 

“Sure,” Stanley whispers, a little breathless, a little too full of emotion. He clears his throat, mentally cursing at himself over it, and just hopes- _prays_ Richie won't mention it. He sits up to grab his shoes and shove them on, and feels his heart race when Richie makes a soft noise while stretching. He needs to fucking get it _together_. 

They're out the door in a few minutes, bundled up against the winter cold. Stanley had to wrap Richie’s scarf around him _for_ him, because he insisted he would be fine without it. If the shivering (and trying to hide it) boy next to him is anything to go by, though, he would _not_ have been. Stanley sighs softly, breath puffing out in front of him in a white cloud, and continues walking without mentioning it. 

Stanley feels like they’re walking aimlessly, but Richie seems to know where they’re going if the soft directions uttered every few minutes are anything to go by. They're relatively quiet as they walk, which is weird for Richie, but Stanley is too caught up in his own thoughts to think about mentioning that, too. 

They arrive at the small diner a few blocks down and around the corner from Richie’s apartment, one where the night shift waitresses know Richie’s name and exactly what he orders. They greet him as such, and Richie smiles and greets them in return before taking his usual seat in the back corner of the place, Stanley following and sitting down across from him. 

It's relatively quiet between them still, the waitress coming over and serving them coffee like she knows they need it. Stanley smiles appreciatively, because if there's anything from the human realm he _loves,_ it’s coffee. Richie doesn't even have to say his order- just simply nods when the waitress asks if he wants the usual. Stanley forgoes any food, just content with sitting and being _with_ Richie. 

Stanley zones out somewhere between Richie ordering and him getting his food, stuck in his own thoughts. It seems to be happening more, lately- Stanley getting lost in his own thoughts, just remembering things Richie’s said, things they've done together. He doesn't like to think about before- before he came to the human realm, before he met Richie. It doesn’t hold a candle to what he’s experienced _here_. 

Really, it's only inevitable this would happen now. 

Stanley’s sitting across from him in this tiny, shitty diner, early on a Saturday morning, cradling the ceramic coffee cup gently between his palms when it hits him. It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the diner, straight out of his lungs, like he’s traveling through the universe without a spacesuit on. It feels like he’s been hit by something, suspended in the air just trying to brace himself for the inevitable impact because-

_Because_ , in that moment, as Stanley looks at Richie in the glow of the diner lights, he genuinely looks like an _angel_. An angel, like Stanley is, like Mike is, like everyone Stanley knows from where he’s lived his life before this. The fluorescent lights behind Richie’s head cast him in a soft glow, like he has a halo of his own; Stanley’s fingers reach up to fiddle with _his_ halo around his neck. He feels like he can't _breathe_ , like no matter how many stuttering breaths he takes in during the next few seconds, they won't get him any air. It’s like he’s forgotten _how_ to breathe in the presence of Richie right now, like all he can focus on is how he _feels_ and how Richie _looks_ , everything else falling to the wayside. Stanley blinks, blinks again, watches as Richie’s mouth forms around words that Stanley can't even _hear_ right now.

It's here, in this diner at nearly 3 in the fucking morning in the middle of winter on Earth, that Stanley realizes he’s absolutely, _irrevocably_ in love with Richie Tozier. 

He gasps, sucking in air like he’s resurfacing from being underwater after a long time, and grips the ring around his neck tightly. He knows what this means- knows how this is going to end suddenly and all at once. 

It's truly, genuinely over for Stanley. 

“-ley?” he hears once he finally resurfaces from the emotions swirling around inside him, blinking hard and refocusing his eyes to find Richie staring at him with his head cocked like a puppy, looking concerned. 

“I’m fine,” Stanley says, but it comes out breathless like before- like before they left the apartment, before Stanley was on a one way track to everything being _over_. _Fuck_. 

“You sure, angel?” Richie asks, throwing out the pet name so casually it has Stanley’s heart stuttering in his chest. He should be used to it by now- Richie’s been calling him _angel_ since the first week they met, with the excuse of _‘no one as lovely as you would ever live on Earth.’_ He doesn't know the irony behind that statement, just like he doesn’t know the irony of the keychain, just like he doesn’t know Stanley, not _really._ Stanley’s certain, without a shadow of a doubt, he will soon. Stanley watches as Richie takes a slow sip of his coffee, watches him like he knows something Stanley doesn't. 

“Yeah,” Stanley responds, still holding onto his necklace in his left hand, feeling the warm, almost unnatural heat emit from it. He takes a sip of his own coffee, to avoid talking, swallowing roughly when all Richie does in response is raise an eyebrow. 

He tries to refocus, tries to make as natural small talk with Richie as he can for the rest of the time they’re in the diner, but he can’t get over the feeling of _fear_. The pounding of his heart, the constricting feeling in his chest, the acidic taste in the back of his mouth- the need to _run run run_ (because Stanley’s never been a fighter- it's just not who he is, who he’ll ever be). 

Richie pays, because Stanley only got _coffee_ and it was his idea to come out this late in the first place. He won't stop shooting Stanley little, concerned looks, like he knows something is wrong- like he can _feel_ it. It makes everything Stanley’s feeling increase tenfold. 

They leave after that, bundled up again and back out into the cold. Stanley can barely even feel it, can barely feel anything other than the fear that seems to be steadily getting worse. His heart is still pounding in his chest, and he’s sure- _positive_ if he was a human he would've passed out by now. Richie isn't even talking to get Stan’s mind off of it like he usually would- Stanley feels _sick_. 

“Richie,” Stanley says, stopping on the sidewalk before he processes he’s even spoken, watching Richie walk a few steps before _he_ processes Stanley spoke. Stanley watches as he walks back over, as he cocks his head to the side like he did in the diner, how he asks _what’s wrong?_ just by looking at Stanley. 

“Yeah?” Richie asks softly, gently, so different than how he normally is during the day. Stanley’s heart constricts painfully, and he feels a little like he’s going to throw up. 

Stanley feels a little like he’s suffocating, too, a little like he’s being choked by the necklace around his neck- he reaches up to grab it, maybe for the last time.

Stanley shakes his head to clear any thoughts, giving Richie a soft, reassuring smile. “Nothing. I just have to go home, is all,” he says, pushing down everything he feels and wants to say with the strength of a bodybuilder. If Richie _knew,_ well, then it’d all be _over_ , certainly. “I’ll walk you back, though,” he says, because he’s nothing if not a gentleman. 

“You’re sure?” Richie asks, and it sounds like he’s asking more than one thing. Like he’s asking if it really _is_ nothing. Stanley gives him another smile, no matter how fake it is, and starts walking again. “It's cold and late. You could just stay at mine,” he says, sounding a little desperate. 

Stanley hums, but doesn’t answer, just continuing to walk with his hands shoved in his pockets to ward off the cold. 

They’re on Richie’s doorstep before Stanley knows it, and he hears Richie fumble with his keys as he tries to get the one for the front door. It’s quiet, save for the sound of Richie’s keys jingling, and Stanley knows he got ahold of the right one when all he can hear is his own breathing and Richie’s teeth chattering over the wind.

Stanley tears his gaze from where it was stuck on a telephone pole across the street, trailing over Richie’s body instead. He takes one step forward, tightening the scarf around Richie’s neck out of instinct, bringing his hands to cup Richie’s ears where they’re tinted red from the cold. The fear doesn’t feel so scary anymore, not when Richie’s the one that’s _here_ and _real_. He figures if it everything has to end, it might as well end like this.

Richie smiles at him; soft, quiet, all of Stanley’s favorite things and Stanley feels like ripping himself away from him, if only in a last ditch effort to save himself. Feels like pushing the boy far, far away and leaving him in the cold. Feels like making his own hands victim of the emptiness surrounding them. 

He doesn’t. 

Instead, he ignores the sirens going off in his head -the voices of older angels, and Mike, and his own loud and cruel voice threatening him, telling him that he simply _cannot love_ \- and he kisses Richie. Stanley’s soft lips meet Richie’s chapped ones, and he feels himself melting in every sense of the word. His heart pounds in his chest, but this time with a feeling entirely _different_ than fear, no matter how much is on the line right now, no matter how much he just fucked up. 

Stanley pulls away first (despite wishing he could spend every second, every _moment_ kissing Richie Tozier), removing his hands from around Richie’s ears, and takes a step back. Then another, and another, and he’s almost to the bottom of the stairs before Richie says anything at all. 

“Stan,” he says, and its soft, but not hesitant. Stanley looks up to find a small smile etched into his features, and he waits. “Text me when you get home,” he finishes, a little louder this time. 

“Sure,” Stanley responds, small smile making its way onto his own face. He feels vaguely giddy, just a little hysterical. He’s so _fucked_ but Richie looks so _happy_ and _content_ just from one kiss, it doesn’t seem all that important right now. 

He sticks his hands in his pockets; a weak attempt to shield them from the cold and keep himself from clawing at his own skin. Stanley walks home slowly, brain running a mile a minute, and he doesn’t make it back until dawn. The light breaks over the horizon as he rounds the corner to his apartment row, rays spreading out across the ground and catching on the dew drops that have formed on the grass. It's beautiful, but Stanley doesn't notice it, not really, not with how fast his brain is running. 

All he can do when he gets into his apartment is collapse onto his living room couch, no matter how uncomfortable it is, no matter how much he doesn't fit entirely onto the small thing. He closes his eyes against the light filtering in; he didn’t even bother to take off his jacket. Stanley falls asleep in minutes. 

In a sense, he doesn't dream. There’s no content, no _context,_ nothing to grasp onto to make sense of. He only _feels._

Feels- feels like he’s falling, like he can't catch himself on anything at all, like he’s just jumped out of a plane but only realized halfway down he forgot to strap on his parachute. 

There's flashes of Richie, too- _memories_. 

_The time they went out to eat with everyone a few months back- sat around a circular table in a private room, Richie shoving chopsticks in his mouth to look like a walrus and making everyone snort with how hard they were laughing over his jokes (because while Stanley and Eddie might say Richie is the unfunniest person there is, he’s not and they know it)._

_Finals week- Richie holed up in his apartment for days, unresponsive to texts and calls. Stanley, heading over with food to make sure he didn't die (Stanley knew he wasn't dead- he would've been sent back if Richie actually was) and walking in to find Richie sleeping- bent over his kitchen table, post-it's stuck in the mess of his hair and glasses skewed uncomfortably on his face._

_The first time meeting Richie’s friends- when he almost had a panic attack beforehand because he’s an angel, he doesn't have human friends, how is he supposed to act normal in front of them? But then Richie had grabbed his hand so gently, carefully, like he knew Stanley was stressed, and even though Beverly and Eddie were wary of him at first, it wasn't bad. How they spent the rest of the time making fun of Richie, how Richie had whined that they were corrupting his angel, how the night ended with Richie spread over his and Eddie’s laps, Stanley’s hands in Richie’s hair like they were meant to be there all along. Stanley remembers the feeling of happiness and safety that night, surrounded by humans he barely knew._

This is what he remembers as he’s falling, as everything reaches its peak and he finally crashes and _burns._

He wakes with a start, gasping around a scream that never fully makes it out of his throat. He’s burning up, head pounding with the force of the dizziness and nausea he feels. This feels like something big- something bigger than just a simple cold (because Stanley can’t _get those-_ ). He manages to get off his jacket that he didn’t take off hours ago, dropping it in the hallway as he stumbles to his room. He doesn’t remember anything else, other than collapsing on his bed, before he passes out. 

It takes three days before Stanley’s lucid enough to even try and find his phone, trying to think through the haze of the fever he’s had to figure out where he had it last. When he finds it, tucked into the inside jacket pocket of the one he was wearing the night he kissed Richie, it’s full of messages from Richie himself, and a few from Eddie, Bill and Bev (which is _weird,_ because he distinctly thinks of them as _Richie’s friends_ and not _his_ ). He stumbles back to bed, dizziness taking over as he scrolls through his messages and tries to get his fingers to work long enough to send an _I’m fine_ paragraph that seems convincing enough to assure Richie and cause him to not come over. 

  
He can’t have Richie seeing him like this- not now, not _ever_. 

Before he receives a reply from Richie, he’s passed out again, and doesn’t wake up for another full day. 

When he _does_ wake up, he wakes to the sound of a key in the lock, to the clicking of it opening, to the squeak of his front door where he never quite did get it fixed correctly the one time Richie broke it by falling into it when he was drunk. 

“Stan?” a voice calls from the living room, and Stanley curses into his pillow with as much strength and energy as he can muster. _Of course_ the universe had to have Richie come over- _of course_. 

When he doesn’t answer (he’ll lie and say it’s because his throat was sore, later, and not because he was dreading ever seeing Richie _again_ -), he hears a bag being set down on the counter of his kitchen, and then footsteps coming closer to his bedroom. He curls up tighter, tries to ward off a wave of nausea as fast as it came on so he doesn’t end up _throwing up_ in front of Richie, and pulls his comforter tighter around himself just as his bedroom door is pushed open, none other than Richie on the other side holding his jacket that Stanley never managed to put away.

“Jesus fucking christ,” is the only thing Richie manages to say once he sees Stanley, at the way he’s deathly pale, at the sweat on his brow and the way he’s shaking underneath the covers like he’s _freezing_. He hangs up Stanley’s jacket in the same spot it always goes (because just like Stanley knows Richie, Richie knows Stanley in all the same ways), and walks closer to the bed like he’s unafraid of getting sick (I _diot,_ is what Stanley wants to say even though he knows he’s not contagious, but he can’t make himself). “Stanley,” he starts like he’s going to say something, then stops, brows furrowing as Stanley looks up at him. He opens, then closes, then reopens his mouth to say something different than what he probably meant to. “Where’s your necklace?” 

“Gone,” Stanley croaks, coughing harshly like the very act of talking is painful and a hassle. Richie’s brows furrow further inwards, and he looks like he can’t process that one word.

“Gone? Gone where? Did someone take it?” he asks, concerned and slightly panicked. In their almost-year of knowing each other, Richie had never seen Stanley without the necklace (not because he knew Stanley _couldn’t_ take it off, but… _semantics_ ). 

“I guess you could say that,” Stanley replies, shivering harder, teeth clacking together in the process. Richie tucks the comforter in tighter than Stanley could manage himself, and Stanley’s heart hurts with the action. 

“You don’t look too good,” Richie says gently, and normally Stanley would make a sarcastic comment back, but all he does is close his eyes in response. 

“Guess you could say that,” Stanley repeats, softer this time, more of a sigh than an actual declaration. 

“It’s over, then?” Richie asks, matching the tone of Stanley’s voice, crouching down and running a hand over Stanley’s hair in a comforting gesture. Stanley’s eyes snap open, and he looks at Richie in a panic. 

“What do you mean?” he says, wishing his voice didn’t come out so weak, because _no,_ there’s no way Richie knows- _knew_. Stanley was so careful- he’d have been sent _back_ if he wasn’t. 

Richie smiles, eyes a little sad around the edges, and continues running his hand over Stanley’s hair. “I might be dumb sometimes but I’m not _stupid_. I knew you were an angel the whole time.” 

“You knew?” Stanley says, voice breaking over the words, and Richie nods in agreement. Richie never acted, never insinuated he knew. It has Stanley’s head spinning as he tries to wrap around the idea. 

“You’re not the only one I called angel, Stan” Richie responds, and suddenly Stanley’s brain snaps back to the picture above Richie’s TV- the one of Eddie and Bill that’s next to the one of Stanley laughing, the one Stanley’s spent hours staring at over the course of the year. How did he never notice the ring necklace Eddie was wearing in it, the one so identical to the one he had as well?

“Eddie,” Stanley whispers, memories flooding back the longer he thinks about it. They used to be friends, ages ago, the three of them- Eddie, Mike, Stanley. It makes sense that they didn’t recognize each other when they first met- as an angel falls, they slowly lose all the memories of the angels they used to know (and vice versa, which means Stanley will slowly forget Mike and Mike him, which _hurts_ more than he likes to admit). It doesn’t mean they lose the ability to _spot_ an angel, though. _Those_ memories are inherent, like instinct. 

“Yeah,” Richie agrees, giving Stanley another soft smile. He stands, then, shucking off his jacket and hanging it across the back of Stanley’s desk chair. “He told me things, while he was falling- about what angels were like, stuff like that. Everything he said seemed to match up with how you acted, I guess, and your necklace looked similar to Eddie’s, so. It just felt right to assume you were one.”

Stanley laughs then, just a little, because it hurts to do anything more, but it’s still funny. The whole situation is so _ridiculous_ , he thinks, and the odds of this happening to _two_ angels in the same area? _Also_ ridiculous. “Always too smart for your own good,” Stanley says, eyes following Richie as he walks around the room to the other side of the bed and gets in.

“You sound like my mother,” Richie responds, getting comfortable in Stanley’s bed like it’s not just a _little_ bit gross.

Stanley doesn’t dignify Richie with a response, still tired and shaking, body clammy like it doesn't quite know what to do, how to function. Richie’s got his arm slung around Stanley’s waist now, palm a searing heat on his stomach, and his nose buried in the soft curls at the base of Stanley’s neck. He tries to focus on Richie’s soft breathing, on the gentle puffs of air on the back of his neck, but Stanley just can't stop _shaking._

He finally cries, then, tears falling faster than he can process. Richie doesn't notice at first, not until Stanley’s _tears_ turn into _sobs_ , until his shoulders start shaking with the force of them and he can't seem to get in a breath that isn’t a _gasp._ He doesn't understand _why_ he’s crying- there are a multitude of reasons _to_ cry, of course there are, but he doesn't think he’s crying over _any_ of them. 

The thing they don't tell you about falling is- _it hurts._

It hurts more than anything he’s ever experienced- feels like he’s burning from the inside out. It feels like how angels describe Hell- like fire licking up from your feet, spreading in the blink of an eye, consuming and all-encompassing. He’s almost scared he _will_ end up in Hell- almost scared he won't make it through this at all (but he has to- he _has_ to, if not for himself but for _Richie_ ).

His shoulder blades ache, like someone forcibly ripped out his wings, and it doesn't even make _sense_ because if you asked him to describe how it feels to even have wings he couldn't _tell you._ It’s been months- _months_ without them, almost a full year, but he can physically _feel_ the absence of them now. And his halo- that's gone, too, has been gone since the afternoon he woke up on the first day. Without the solid weight around his neck he feels off kilter and wobbly, like he just came off a boat after weeks at sea, or he spun around in a circle over and over until his equilibrium was off. 

Richie rubs at his back gently with the hand that was on his stomach, like he knows it _aches_ , and shushes him softly. He doesn’t say anything, just continues shushing him until Stanley’s sobs turn into gentle hiccups- until he curls back up, exhausted. He feels Richie kiss the back of his neck gently, and it makes Stanley shiver minutely. 

“Better?” Richie whispers, voice laced with concern as his hand comes over to rest on Stanley’s hip now. 

Stanley hums in response, and falls back asleep to Richie’s gentle humming, feeling safe knowing that he’ll be there when Stanley wakes up however long later.

+

“No, no I’m serious! He was _such_ a shithead,” Stanley says around a laugh, hands raised up to catch the pillow it looks like Eddie is about to throw at him. “He used to mess with the cupids and piss them off because he thought love was _stupid_.”

The pillow is thrown with a loud yell, and Stanley catches it easily even while laughing so hard he’s doubled over on the couch. Richie’s laughing too- they _all_ are (except Eddie, of course, who’s pouting grumpily on the other side of the room, Bill shushing him gently _while_ laughing).

“It was! It was stupid!” Eddie defends, arms crossed securely around his chest, mouth pitched down in a frown that looks dangerously close to dissolving into a smile as well. “Ben was the fucking _worst_ ,” he grumbles without heat.

“Ben was _lovely,_ you were just grumpy as anything back then,” Stanley says, rolling his eyes. 

“Can’t believe _Eddie_ hated love. How great was Bill’s dick that you changed your mind?” Richie asks dodging the pillow that _Bill_ throws at him. He laughs loudly, pitching over into Stanley’s side, and smiling up at him happily. “Okay?” he asks softly, soft enough so Beverly, Bill and Eddie won’t hear.

“Okay,” Stanley says, leaning down and kissing Richie gently. 

The smile he gets in return is enough to let him know that it was worth it- it was _all_ worth it.


End file.
